Suspended, on a fork
An egg, full of life:
Crusted duck white
Cupped a golden yolk.
Its love dripped away
From want of ground.
The morsel delivered
Safely
Soundly
Softly
To my lips.
Tucked next to me on the banquette,
Via special request,
You took care.
Black soil long unturned
offered
A new glimpse at the sun,
Fresh breath and oxygen.
Two glass bottles,
Dirty on the inside
clean on the outside
Lain aside, next to the pile of earth,
Lifted softly by his shovel.
His two hands grasping
Two arms push the buried soil into light
Coaxing
Prodding
asking,
Without words,
Admitting silence.
Two bottles on the table with a bent spoon and sundry treasures
from the trench,
Flowers purchased.
The two bottles,
one amber, one clear as ice
Different, but together, shapely.
Will stand next to one another,
Wrapped in silence on the window sill,
Unearthed, drinking in the sun.
Atlas needed a chiropractor, probably,
after all the bearing without a shrug.
In his shoulders the sinews must have been
like ropes, tightropes, or those tied off
straining against a cleat on the shore.
To yield is not to weaken.
The cord gives way and the vessel moves closer
to dry land.
His bones move closer to other bones;
the world, still heavy, rests against his neck.
I.
In Venice Beach the sun breaks over the rooftops,
Early in the morning
Before the stalls have opened.
So weekdays, in the summer
Are perfect for skateboard lessons.
Her knees wobble and ankles try to hold,
Gripped tight to the deck
Wrists tipped and fingertips perpendicular
A tattooed Shirley Temple
Pushing, limping through the shadows.
She leaned the way he told her
As usual
Told her to trust the arc of her body
Even when it didn’t feel natural
As usual.
He taught her to tighten the trucks
When she went too far
Leaning into space
Shoulders back against the sun,
He let go of her hand
Just as his palm pushed her forward
Firm, against her tricep
Knowing she would carry on,
Perhaps even loved, he hoped.
He was not sure.
II.
Today she took a spin in the basement
And tipped it into her quick fist
Wincing, the rough plank slapped a scrape
Earned last week
After too many mojitos.
Bought on her birthday for herself
She wanted so much for this skateboard, a silly thing, to . . . help.
But the boy who sold it to her took more interest
In her, than who should have,
As usual.
Hawaiian, Koa hardwood,
Designed by Kelly Slater
(who hit on her once when she was fourteen)
still pristine from disuse
the day she sold out.
Taut, unbending,
It didn’t give the way the others did
The ones relaxed with use
And familiarity,
Flexing, pleasured.
Today, then, she took eighty bucks,
Plus a gin and tonic
For that pleasure
Sure that the young boy would
On any cruise, bend beyond stiff.
III.
Venice? It was simple
With love and life, the people called to her
Each to each
And the sunlight crept over the rooftops
Gently. Safely.
She knew herself,
So perfectly alone
Both happy and dangerous,
Cooking dinner for one
And never, ever, by herself.
Mid-July sun touched the drum circle
In the sand, at two,
And the canals, quiet with ducks,
Pretended to be Italian even so
California modern, loving leftovers.
But she lived in Los Angeles
Not Venice,
With corners too tight for a longboard,
Much less Minneapolis, with bulging
And receding streets, love determined by an arbor.
Jennifer, do you know how long it takes
For a voice to be your own?
Once, before the sun came up, she wondered if it ever would. Shutting her eyes, she made thoughts of sweeping light flash against her lids. The clock read 4:17. It was late and early all at once.
Underneath the sheet, her toes grazed his and he stirred, cupping the top of her foot with his. A tiny embrace. His fingers found her palm and she remembered a line from her favorite poem about Minnesota, a poem called A Blessing, about horses in a field, ponies with ears “delicate as the skin over a young girl’s wrist” . . .
He had listened to her all night, after speaking, and listening, and then speaking again. The conversation found its way to the morning, meandering through a dark and brambled thicket. It was a grove with many paths. They had seemed to diverge at times, though they could still see one another through the thick branches of their words, could still hear one another’s voices if they became quiet. By calling out, clear and with direction, they found themselves together again, reaching through the thorny web, close enough to see the reflection of the pale moon in each other’s eyes.
She rested.
By the time the sun came up, she knew it would be a clear day.
There’s a reason it’s called settling down.
When the soul is in flight,
Seeking,
Wanting,
Striving,
It never lands anywhere for more than a moment.
Bounding up, again, away from that most recent pleasure.
Discontent.
Unsettled.
Uncertain.
If my soul were to find a resting place
It would be like Goethe’s Faust in the end.
After Gretchen is dead
And the child, too,
(She will still be saved.)
(And the doctor, the cause, is saved through his own passivity.)
He has been relieved of her, no longer a concern,
Goes on to build his great city
After the Walpurgis Night
Of nymphs and creatures made from man.
But still,
Not content,
Ever striving,
The grasshopper bounding –
Pushing off from the solid ground
Into breaking air.
Mephisto left to dwell
Bitterly,
Consoled only by the angels,
Having been a pawn,
Confused.
Faust never settled down.
Retained his soul.
Singular.
Alone.
Discontent.
Expands into my
World from the driver’s seat,
Listens to my music and guesses
I’m filthy.
Unclean.
Holding the door,
He flashes a wide smile,
Knowing.
Of picnics
and parlor tricks
Underneath a burning sky;
Spiders creep
up thighs,
Snack on bruised skins.
Rushing with the muddy water
Just ahead of the night,
just in front
of
the year
before.
The year of the dog.
Now there’s a slow dance in the kitchen
Underneath a low light
And dinner
Not finished,
not yet
On the table.
And blinked the smart from her eyes.
Certainly, she was shaken
And most definitely changed.
Not the same girl who stumbled just then.
Clearing her throat
against the rustle of trees
Hard
She stood down into her heels
Pointed her crown to the sky
and then. And then. And then:
She carried on.
And sat a moment, with eyes closed,
Knees and palms stinging against
The ground beneath her.
Slowly, she arched her fingers like spider legs
parted her tender palms from the gravel
And dusted them off against each other.
Rocking back, she plucked the rocks from her kneecaps
One by one.
She glanced behind her for the root
To blame
And finding none, she looked skyward
For the bird that stole her eye.
The heavens empty, she knew
With certainty,
She wasn’t paying attention.